28 February 2013

Appalache - 2012 - Fue

Quality: 4.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

Another platter of reverb'ed ambiance from the primordial nighttime of the soul. Fortunately, I haven't gotten tired of that sort of thing. The faux-Deutsch Grammophone logo suggests something 'Sting orchestrating his old songs' pretentiousness, but the dreamcatcher in the background is a better portent of sounds to come. There's a lot of cavernous, echos from electronic tones filling in the space on this release, but the glue that holds it all forever is some sparkling guitar (mostly electric). This is the transcendental moment of the late night, delirious pow wow when all the ghosts come out. In France, at least.

Let's talk about surf guitar for a minute. As you may have noticed from my own recording I absolutely love a good, twangy surf guitar, but the eponymous genre can easily become a retro-fluff dead end. This is far from surf music, but I'll be damned if we don't have some mighty fine surf guitar lurking around here. "Dimensions of Truth" is Dick Dale once that wave has slammed him underwater, and the subsequent concussion leads him to a philosophical conversation with Dennis Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, and Chief Seattle. And that's how I shall go about describing my favorite track here. "R55R," "Somewhere to Disappear," and "Mortality" also tie the whole room together with splashes of the lost dreams of surf guitar. "F.A.1999" pulls back the veil of sound for an unplugged ceremony, while "Disillusioned Infinity" features a collaborator who I believe is there to super-saiyan the sounds into a fusioned powered ball of dark energy.

Let me reiterate: this is by no means a surf album. This is the dark, yet relaxing sounds found deep inside the spirit quest. Sort of a modern iteration of the better new age sounds. I hear a lot of this kind of stuff, however. The guitar is how this set got its hooks into me, and upon reviewing it I'm catching the final rumblings of a early 60's Fender Combo Amp turned up to 11. Appalache have taken the sunny California yin and slammed it headfirst into the yang of dark ambiance.

Dr. Schluss stares at yoo.

About Me

Howdy folks. This is my attempt to spotlight some lesser known tidbits of psychedelia. The aim is to sonically reprogram your mind. I'm always searching for something new and bizarre, so check back every once and a while. And if you have any suggestions or mp3s of something really interesting, please drop me a line.